You have probably seen his post going around online. It is a masterlist of countries and corresponding locations in which a global meeting is to take place. From the Americas and Europe to Africa and Asia, certain places in over a hundred of certain cities have been assigned where men could gather and celebrate their neo-masulinist movement.
The man behind it is Daryush ‘Roosh’ Valizadeh. He calls his group the “Return of Kings,” and proclaims himself as the “King of Masculinity.”
WATCH: “Rape: It’s Your Fault” – This video is satire at its best!
Aside from his widely read and highly criticized blog, he has written a series of books teaching what he claims is the best way for men to use their testosterone to bed women, basically a how-to guide for rape.
What makes him so notorious is his advocating of the legalization rape in private properties.
Among other things, he also advocates that women be banned from voting, describes women’s value as dependent on their ‘fertility and beauty,’ and states that women with eating disorders make the best girlfriends.
Scarier still is the fact that he has amassed across the globe a legion of like-minded men who aims to follow his footsteps and do right by him.
This does not come without a price however.
Worldwide Outrage
Following his rise to the public consciousness, he finds himself in the center of public protests all over the world, from his homeland United States, to Canada, Australia, the UK, and Asia.
He began receiving death threats.
One such threat said that if he came to their country, he would be “shot, stabbed or have his home burned down.”
“We will kill you if you come to our city,” said another.
Because of this, he has cancelled his worldwide city meetings; he could no longer guarantee his and his followers’ safety and privacy, he said.
When the threats started to overwhelm him, he called 911. The police arrived, and he was discovered to be living in his mother’s basement.
He told the police that his blog was meant to be satirical, but when the authorities asked when he had put the disclaimer, Valizadeh said that it was only yesterday.
So far return of Kings have made no announcements whether or not another global meeting will take place.
Silenced but not defeated
On his forum, a warning message appeared stating that they were in a “state of emergency” and “extra rules apply during the worldwide attack against our international meetup day.”
He addressed his followers saying, “the world is moving against us.” He also advised them to collect and post “threats” made against meetup attendees on social media.
“As far as I’m concerned Return of Kings are encouraging violence against women and girls,” Home Office minister Sarah Champion MP said in a statement. “This should be viewed as a hate crime and the government and police should use our existing laws to deal with it swiftly to show we won’t accept anyone promoting abuse.”
Click on the next page to read how we can teach mean not to rape
Rape is a tricky subject to broach mostly because it has been imbedded in our culture for so long. But there are ways that we can turn it around.
Rape survivor Zerlina Maxwell offers ways to prevent rape without making women responsible for the crimes committed against them.
- Teach young men about legal consent: Legal consent tops my list for a reason. Without it, sexual contact with someone is rape…whether you intended to rape or not. A woman who is drunk, unconscious or sleeping cannot give legal consent. And it’s not about a woman simply saying “no,” it’s really about making certain she’s saying yes!
- Teach young men to see women’s humanity, instead of seeing them as sexual objects for male pleasure.
- There is no shortage of evidence that rape culture results from the objectification of women and the view that we exist simply for male pleasure.
- Teach young men how to express healthy masculinity: The question that’s being asked about what women can do to prevent violence against them is the wrong question. We have to…redefine what masculinity means. The messages that men get around masculinity from a young age are too often about violence and about exerting power and control. We need to challenge the definition of masculinity as inherently violent.
- Teach young men to believe women and girls who come forward: The vast majority of women do not report their rapes to the police and many more only tell one or two people in confidence. That is a result of our proclivity towards victim blaming.
- Teach males about bystander intervention. When we talk about bystander intervention, it’s more about simply intervening when you see someone doing or about to do something wrong, “It’s also about first calling people out for sexist jokes about women and girls. It’s not just the intervening act, it’s about all of the things that lead up to it. We must be consistent to get society to understand how sexist jokes are connected to sexual violence.
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